The new medicare out of pocket max is $2000 a year for prescription drugs. Sorry to strike a political point here but that was passed under Biden's IRA (inflation reduction act).
So when my wife spends her first $2000 for prescriptions, all drug costs for the remainder of the year is zero. ZERO! That means a lot when she also takes Creon, but she takes many more than your husband and we were spending between $500 and $1200 a month depending on whether she was in the initial stage, doughnut hole or catastrophic stage. But now $ZERO after the first $2000 out of pocket. My wife also takes a drug that if someone didn't have insurance would cost $18,000 per "month". But now $ZERO after the first $2000.
- More important. You say your husband had his pyloric and duodenum removed with the pancreas. And he takes an antacid proton pump inhibitor? Like you said, with a normal duodenum the acid is neutralized when it goes into the duodenum. But without the duodenum, acid goes into the jejunum (the part of the small intestines that comes after the duodenum) that the surgeon now attached to the stomach since he/she cut away the pyloric and the duodenum. So if not neutralized by the proton pump inhibitor, this acid can cause ulcers in the anastomosis (the connection made by the surgeon to the jejunum). So taking the PPI (proton pump inhibitor) can prevent damage from the acid.
How do I know all of this? My wife is an eight year pancreatic cancer survivor without a pancreas, pyloric, duodenum, spleen, gallbladder and just had a life threatening gastric bleed. Please speak with your husband's pancreatic surgeon about taking the PPI indefinitely, like forever.